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11.20.08 Sample RFP Proposal Template  By
Peter Da VanzoIn response to my post yesterday "The Art Of The SEO Proposal", we had a few comments from readers wanting to see examples of proposals. Thanks for the feedback, guys. It really helps us to cover areas you find most valuable. I looked back through some old proposals looking for examples, and here's the one that earned me the most money: Hi (name removed), It was great to meet up and hear about your plans for (name removed). As discussed, this email is to confirm the scope of the project. I will undertake search marketing for (name removed) with the aim of generating new sales leads. The KPI will be based around increasing the volume of verifiable leads per month, and demonstrating these leads came from search engine visitors. Contract to follow. Kind regards, Peter Feel free to use it  The problem with templates, and why I don't recommend relying on them, is that they aren't specific. There are no magic words that will ensure clients sign on the line. If you're pitching for thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars worth of work, then you need to do upfront research regarding the clients specific business problems, and that must flow through into your proposal.
The exception is if you're taking a "throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks" approach, in which case you just need to swap out a few details. Personally, when I receive such proposals, I bin them, and then make a mental note not to have anything to do with that company again. If they can't be bothered, then why should I? The "proposal" above, which was just an email, was arrived at after a working lunch. The client came to me by a word of mouth reference. This particular client was the internet marketing manager for a large, international bank. Over lunch, I asked questions about the clients business, the problems they faced, and what they hoped to achieve. I made it clear to the client before lunch that if I didn't see an opportunity to get them more business using search marketing, then I would tell them so. No hard feelings, and at least we'd have a nice lunch. It turned out that was the right thing to say for this particular client, as he had a dim view of search marketers - he'd engaged people in the past, and it hadn't worked out - and he was visibly relived when I started to talking about solving business problems, rather than rankings, links and tags. In this instance, the proposal fit the client. He was already sold by the time I put something in writing, he just wanted to sign-off and get on with it. However, template guidelines can be useful, especially if you're struggling to know what to say. Proposals are a plan for solving a problem, and they outline the terms of engagement. You need to state what the problem is, explain how you're going to solve it, and explain why you're the best person to solve that problem. One of our readers, Hugo Guzman, from zetainteractive.com provided a great example of structure he uses, which I'll reproduce here: Continue reading this article. About the Author: Peter Da Vanzo is the founder of Search Engine Blog.com, a news resource for the search engine marketing industry. He is also a regular contributer on SEO Book. | |||||||
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